In the gas turbine, a compressor compresses air. The compressed air is supplied to combustors where it is combusted with fuel to generate high-temperature combustion gas. The generated combustion gas is supplied to a turbine where its energy is converted into a rotation power of a rotor. Accordingly, a leakage of the compressed air is needed to be avoided or minimized in order to effectively extract the rotation power in the gas turbine engine.
Practically, however, there exist gaps at connections between radially-inward and radially-outward annular members, e.g., between the turbine nozzle and annular members supporting the nozzle in the gas turbine engine, through which a part of the compressed air for cooling generated at the compressor may leak into a downstream section such as turbine. An increase of the leakage will result in a decrease in performance of the gas turbine engine.
JP 10-339108 discloses a sealing technique in which a rib is provided on a downstream flange surface of the stationary blade to make a linear sealing contact between a sealing surface of the rib and a stationary blade support ring to prevent the leakage of the compressed air. According to this technique, the seal can be maintained and, as a result, the leakage of the compressed air can be prevented, even where the stationary support ring inclines to its neighborhood member or members.
Disadvantageously, the structural members of the gas turbine engine are exposed to a high-temperature during its operation, which may vary relative positions or distances between the structural members in the radial and/or axial direction and, as a result, gaps between the neighborhood elements which may not be accommodated by the conventional sealing technique to result in the leakage of the compressed air.
Therefore, an object of the invention is to provide a sealing arrangement and a gas turbine engine incorporating the sealing arrangement, by which a seal is maintained in a stable manner even when the relative angles and/or positions between the structural members of the gas turbine engine were changed due to their thermal expansion or contraction and, as a result, the performance and the reliability of the gas turbine engine are increased.